


Pokemon Fever's Driving me Crazy

by hybridempress



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crack, Crossover, Gen, Pokemon X
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 18:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3620406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hybridempress/pseuds/hybridempress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a slow month for the Avengers. Life gets pretty boring with no crazy supervillains to chase around. In his boredom, Steve decides to try something new and plays a Pokemon game for the first time. From the moment he picked it up, he was hooked! What will happen when the rest of the Avengers get bitten by the Pokemon bug, too?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pokemon Fever's Driving me Crazy

    "Hey, have any of you guys seen Steve? I haven't seen him around lately... Is he okay?"   
  
    The expression on Natasha's face looked slightly worried as she walked towards the table where the other Avengers were all sitting together and noticed that Steve wasn't there. It wasn't like him to miss a day of training, or even just a day of hanging out with the other Avengers. Work had been slow these days, what with no crazed super villains running around, and Steve definitely wasn't the "loner" kind of guy.   
  
    Everyone else, however, didn't seem worried in the slightest. In fact, each of them began to smile at the mention of Steve's name and Natasha's asking where he was. Obviously, they all knew something about Steve that she didn't. She wasn't sure if the smiling of the others should be taken as a good sign or a reason to worry more.   
  
    "Well, where is he?" she asked, her face turning serious as she leaned over the table and planted the palms of both hands firmly on it, shifting her gaze from one Avenger to the next and waiting calmly for someone to speak up.   
  
    "Steve's been hit by Pokemon Fever," Bruce replied after a few moments, seeing as how no one else had bothered to speak up yet.  
  
    "Wait, what?" Natasha asked, narrowing her eyes at nothing in the real world, but rather, the image of Steve sitting around his apartment playing a Pokemon game like some teenage kid.   
  
    "You know, Pokemon. The Nintendo video game franchise that centers around children capturing different types of monsters, keeping them as pets and using them to battle other-" Tony began, but Natasha cut him off.  
  
    "I know what Pokemon is, Tony. I just want to know how Steve found out about it and why he's playing it. Don't you need some sort of gaming console for that? I didn't think Steve had any."  
  
    Tony shrugged. "Some kid asked him to give it a try when he was running around the park the other day and he really liked it so he went out and bought a 3DS and a Pokemon game and hasn't put it down since. I'm pretty sure he even exchanged friend codes or whatever with that kid."  
  
    "...And he's been neglecting his training, work and hangout time so he can play a video game?" Natasha inquired.   
  
    "Yeah, basically," Tony answered, nodding a little.   
  
    Natasha pursed her lips and continued to stare at the four men sitting at the table before standing up, turning around and beginning to walk out of the room.   
  
    Thor raised an eyebrow. "Where are you going, friend?" he asked curiously.  
  
    "To tell Steve to get his ass off of the video game," she answered.   
  
    "Aw, come on, Nat. Let the guy have some fun. There's no crime going on and he's still trying to get hip with the times. He's an old man, remember? When he was our age, they didn't have fancy electronic games! If you wanted to have fun, you had to go outside and play hide-and-seek with your friends or read a book!" Clint exclaimed, imitating the voice of an old man and causing the other three men to laugh.   
  
    Natasha rolled her eyes. "Just because there's no crime going on right now doesn't mean we should make ourselves comfortable. We could get another job any second and we have to be ready." Without another word, she left the room.  
  
~*~  
  
    Steve's apartment was pretty far away from Stark Tower, which was where the Avengers had decided to hang out on that particular day, but Natasha had her motorcycle with her that day and it made it easier for her to get to Steve's apartment more quickly. She hadn't bothered to give him a call before she got there. She parked her motorcycle in the building's parking lot, walked into the building and walked up the stairs until she reached Steve's floor.  
  
    She walked down the hall until she reached Steve's door, and when she was standing in front of it, she began to knock on it loudly. She was used to Steve answering rather quickly, but not today. Today, Natasha had to give three different rounds of knocks before she finally heard footsteps walking across the floor on the other side of the door, indicating that Steve was coming to open it for her.   
  
    The click of locks being undone could be heard from the other side of the door. Natasha watched as the doorknob twisted around and the door was pulled open from the inside. Steve stood in the doorway, wearing casual, baggy clothes and looking like he hadn't showered yet that day. Natasha raised an eyebrow.   
  
    "Oh, Nat, hey!" Steve greeted, smiling at her. "I didn't expect to see you around today. Do you need something from me?"   
  
    "What, a friend can't just come by to come by?" Natasha asked, smirking at him slightly before stepping into the apartment after Steve had moved aside to let her in.   
  
    "I never said that," Steve replied, his smile growing as he shut the door and followed her inside.   
  
    "So what's been going on with you lately? I haven't seen you around in a while," Natasha said, taking her jacket off and tossing it onto the couch, not noticing that she had thrown it over Steve's 3DS. Her eyes began scanning the room, trying to find it.   
  
    Steve shrugged and followed her into his living room. "Ah, not much. Just kinda relaxing, ya know? Taking some time to catch up on the times," he answered.  
  
    "Oh yeah?" Natasha asked, stopping her scanning of the room to turn her head and look at him. "Word around Stark Tower is that you got yourself obsessed with a video game. Pokemon, I think Tony said?"  
  
    Steve blushed and smiled sheepishly at her before walking over to the couch and sitting down on it. "Well, I wouldn't say  _obsessed,_  but it is really fun," he admitted, moving Natasha's jacket off of his 3DS and picking it up. Natasha's eyes widened only slightly, feeling somewhat stupid for having thrown her jacket on top of it.  
  
    Steve looked up at her with an inviting look on his face and patted the seat next to him on the couch. "C'mere, I'll show you!"   
  
    Deciding to humor Steve a little and see what all the fuss was about before she decided to ban him from playing it anymore, Natasha sat down next to him and rested her head on his shoulder to look at the screen. Steve began to play the game again, making his character move around the screen and walk around in the tall grass until he met up with a wild Pokemon. It looked like a butterfly, but Natasha didn't see what the creature's name was.   
  
    The Pokemon that Steve was using to battle the butterfly resembled a fox, though it was mostly yellow in color, with a white muzzle, orange eyes and a lot of orange fur coming out of its ears. Its attacks seemed to be mostly fire-based. It didn't take long for Steve to beat the butterfly creature.   
  
    Natasha watched Steve play his game for a good half-an-hour or so. Natasha quickly figured out that it was an RPG-type game, where the focus was to capture and train as many Pokemon as possible to battle other trainers in the game in order to beat it. It was a fairly simple game, but even just watching Steve play it, Natasha was mildly interested.   
  
    Steve seemed to notice the interest Natasha seemed to have in the game, and smiled to himself. When the next battle came around for him, he handed the 3DS over to Natasha. Not knowing what Steve wanted her to do with it, she just stared at it in confusion for a moment before taking her gaze away from the 3DS and looking at Steve with the same confused look.   
  
    "C'mon, give it a try," Steve urged.  
  
    "What, you want me to play the game?" she asked him, raising an eyebrow.   
  
    "Yeah!" Steve exclaimed.   
  
    "Aha, I don't think so," Natasha dismissed, trying to push Steve's hand away. "I don't want to play it. I came here to tell you to get your-"  
  
    "Come on, Nat! I know you want to!" Steve said in a sing-song voice.   
  
    "I really don't," she said, stone-faced.   
  
    "Please, Nat? Just one battle? For me?" Steve asked her, holding the 3DS in front of her again and giving her his best puppy-eyes look.   
  
    She stared at him in silence for a moment before sighing loudly, clearly annoyed, and taking the game from him. "Fine.  _One battle._  But then you need to put the game away and come back to Stark Tower with me," she bargained.   
  
    Steve gave a slightly disappointed sigh, but agreed to it anyways. "Alright, alright, fine." He repositioned himself on the couch so he could see the screen as Natasha began to play.  
  
    Despite the fact that Steve was pretty far in the game and the battles were getting continuously harder, and the other fact that this was Natasha's first time playing the game, she managed to do pretty well in the battle. In fact, she won it, albeit with a few fainted Pokemon. However, rather than being proud of herself for winning the battle or remaining stone-faced because she was bored of the game already, Steve noticed that she looked almost disappointed.  
  
    "Damn..." she muttered under her breath.  
  
    Steve frowned a little. "What's the matter, Nat?" he asked her.   
  
    "I did terribly," Natasha answered.  
  
    "What, are you kidding me?" Steve asked, chuckling softly. "You did great, Nat! Especially for your first try!"   
  
    "Yeah, well I can do better," Natasha declared, and forced the game back into Steve's hands. "Set me up with another battle."   
  
    Steve smiled broader and laughed. He did as he was told, quickly finding another battle for Natasha and giving the game back to her once the battle had started. He watched her more closely this time, and occasionally gave her pointers on which attacks to use. She did much better on this battle than the last one and looked very pleased with herself.   
  
    "You know, this is pretty fun," she admitted, smiling slightly as she handed the game back to Steve.  
  
    His eyes lit up like Christmas lights. "You really think so??" he asked her.  
  
    She shrugged a little. "Yeah. I mean, it's nowhere near as exciting as beating the shit out of some baddies, but it's good entertainment when we've got nothing else to do," she said.  
  
    "Well, you should get your own copy, then! We could battle each other if you did that! I have Pokemon X, so you should get Pokemon Y. That way we can trade Pokemon from the different versions. It'll give us something fun to do together when we don't have anything else to do!" Steve suggested.  
  
    "I dunno, Steve. I'm still not completely sold on it," she told him, shrugging again.   
  
    "Aw, come on, Nat! It'll be fun, I promise!" Steve urged.  
  
    Natasha was silent for a moment before finally saying "I'll think about it."  
  
    "Good enough for now, I guess," Steve said. "But in the meantime, you wanna play some more on my game?"  
  
    "Yeah, sure, I guess," Natasha replied. "But just for another hour. Then we really should get going."   
  
~*~  
  
    Natasha had ended up staying for a lot longer than an hour that day. In fact, she stayed at Steve's apartment so long that Steve ended up making dinner for both of them and she didn't leave until pretty late at night. The two had both gotten so wrapped up in the game that they hadn't realized what time it was until Steve started to get hungry. Both of them were pretty sure that the other Avengers were no longer in Stark Tower.   
  
    Something good had come out of their time together, though. Steve was sure that he had convinced Natasha to buy a Pokemon game. She seemed to have gotten into it just as much as he had when the little boy showed it to him at the park the other day. It was an addicting game, for sure. It seemed that one more Avenger had been infected with Pokemon Fever.   
  
    Steve's suspicions had been proven true when Natasha showed up at his apartment again the next day, and had brought with her a newly bought cosmic purple 3DS with a Pokemon Y cartridge placed inside of it. Steve's smile had been so wide his cheeks started to hurt as he pulled Natasha into his apartment, wanting to be able to play with her as soon as possible.   
  
    "I can't believe you actually got the game!" he exclaimed as he ran over to the couch, where his 3DS was on and resting once again.  
  
    "Yeah, I can't, either," Natasha muttered under her breath as she followed him.   
  
    Steve sat down first and picked up his 3DS. Natasha sat next to him and turned hers on. They positioned themselves on the couch so that they were facing each other and their screens were turned away from each other. They had to sit Indian-style to be able to fit, but they didn't mind. They exchanged Friend Codes with each other before opening their games.   
  
    "You gotta let me play around a little more first. I only got the game today. I haven't done much with it. My Pokemon are kinda shitty," Natasha said.  
  
    Steve let out a soft, horrified gasp at what Natasha had said. "Natasha!! You can't just say that your Pokemon are shitty!!" he exclaimed.  
  
    Natasha raised an eyebrow. "Why not? They are."   
  
    Steve shook his head frantically. "No, you just haven't battled with them enough yet! They're not strong enough! That doesn't mean they're shitty! No Pokemon are shitty! You can't say that! That's like calling your pet shitty! You'd never say that about your pet would you?"  
  
    "Um, no... But this is a game, Steve. It's not like they can hear me or anything," Natasha said.  
  
    "That's not an excuse..." Steve muttered.   
  
    Natasha rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just help me level up my Pokemon so I can beat your ass."  
  
    Steve closed his game and set his 3DS on the arm of his couch. Natasha turned around on the couch again so that Steve could see her screen. He watched her play the game and helped her out when she got stuck. It took a few hours, but eventually, Natasha got to about the same point in the plot that Steve was at, and she had built up a Pokemon Team that she loved.   
  
    "Alright, I'm ready to beat your ass now," she said, and gave him a smirk.  
  
    Steve grabbed his 3DS and opened it up again. He and Natasha sat face-to-face with their screens turned away from each other again. They went into the multi-player part of the game and set up a battle with each other. Once they were in the battle, they both gave it their all. They were pretty equally matched. Steve liked to think he was more experienced than Natasha, but she was a fast learner and had picked up all of Steve's tips and tricks fairly quickly. Their teams were both pretty good, too. However, by the end of the battle, Steve had won.   
  
    "Yes! I beat you!" Steve exclaimed as he fist-pumped and a broad smile grew on his face.  
  
    Natasha rolled her eyes, but smiled faintly. "Whatever. It's just because you have more experience in battling online than I do. The computers are easy to beat," she said.   
  
    Steve laughed softly. "Whatever you say, Nat."  
  
    The two continued to battle each other for some time. They counted the wins that each person had, and it was pretty close to a tie. By the time they had stopped, Steve had only won by one battle. They would have played for longer, but Natasha's cellphone had started ringing. It was Clint.  
  
    "Hang on, I gotta take this call," Natasha said as she put her 3DS down and answered her cellphone. "Hello?"  
  
    "Nat, where are you? You didn't come back to the tower yesterday after you went to find Steve and you haven't spoken to any of us since you left. Now we've got two missing Avengers and three men who won't admit they're worried," Clint said seriously.  
  
    "Relax, Barton, I'm at Steve's apartment again. We're both fine," Natasha assured.   
  
    "What are you doing at his apartment again...? Did you not get him to get his ass off of his 3DS yesterday?" Clint asked, raising an eyebrow.  
  
    "Um... No..." Natasha answered, biting her lip a little.  
  
    "Damn, who knew grandpa could be so stubborn..." Clint said. There was a hint of amusement in his voice.  
  
    "Well, I kinda let him keep the game..." Natasha admitted.  
  
    "Wait, what? You just  _let_  him keep playing? Why?" Clint asked.  
  
    "Well, he kinda made me play it with him, and it was a lot of fun..."  
  
    Clint groaned. "Don't tell me you have Pokemon Fever too..." he mumbled.  
  
    "It's addicting! And besides, I need to get god enough to beat Steve's ass!" Natasha shouted defensively.   
  
    Clint rolled his eyes. "Whatever. You guys are such children. But you can't be stuck up in Steve's apartment all the time. Why don't you bring your games back to Star Tower and you can play them here, when you're at least in the company of the rest of us."  
  
    "Fine," Natasha agreed. "We'll be there soon."  
  
    "Good. See you later," Clint said, and then hung up.  
  
    Natasha put her phone back in her pocket and looked at Steve. "The other Avengers want us back at Stark Tower," she told him. "Clint said we have to bring our games to the Tower and play them there."  
  
    Steve shrugged. "Sure, sounds okay to me," he said.  
  
    The two closed their 3DSs and packed them into their cases. After that, they left the apartment and went outside the building, into the parking lot. They both mounted their motorcycles and started them up. They rode their motorcycles back to Stark Tower.  
  
    When they arrived, they took the elevator to the top floor, where the rest of the Avengers were currently hanging out. Upon their entrance to the loft that Tony had on the top floor, the other Avengers all turned away from their conversation and looked at the door where Steve and Natasha had entered from.  
  
    "Well it's about damn time you two showed up," Tony said, grinning.  
  
    "We were beginning to think we'd lost you to the game," Bruce said.   
  
    Natasha rolled her eyes. "What, super heroes can't have a break every once in a while?" she asked as she and Steve made their way to the rather large couch in the room and said down on it.  
  
    "Hey,  _I_  was the one asking that yesterday when you wanted to take Steve's game away," Clint reminded.  
  
    "Shut up," Natasha said. The other Avengers laughed.  
  
~*~  
  
    Over the course of the next week, slowly, it seemed that every Avenger had succumb to the sickness that was Pokemon Fever. It started with Tony, who wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Steve let Tony battle against Natasha, who creamed him in less than five minutes. Unable to accept defeat, Tony refused to give the game back to Steve and kept battling against Natasha until he got good enough to win against her once.   
  
    The next day, Tony had his own 3DS and a copy of Pokemon Y when the other Avengers came to the tower. He, Steve and Natasha played together while the other three Avengers sat and chatted among themselves, poking fun at the three who were sucked into the game. However, eventually, Bruce's curiosity got the best of him. He wandered over to the other three and Natasha offered to let him use her 3DS to play against Tony.  
  
    Bruce was a natural pro at Pokemon. Either that or Tony was just terrible at it, but either way, Bruce won his first battle against Tony, who threw a mini hissy-fit because of it. He and Bruce continued to battle each other while Natasha watched Steve play through the story on his own game. The next day, Bruce had come into Star Tower with a 3DS of his own and a copy of Pokemon X.   
  
    Clint and Thor were the only two left without 3DSs, and sat together at the large table where they usually sat while everyone else was on the couch, battling each other and becoming extremely competitive about it. Angry shouts of "Well  _my_  Delphox is better than  _your_ Delphox!" and "At least I can make it through a battle without having all but one of my Pokemon fainting!" rang throughout Stark Tower.   
  
    Clint was thoroughly annoyed by it. Thor, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy the commotion. It wasn't long before he, too, left the table and joined the others on the couch, quickly being consumed by Pokemon Fever. He took turns playing with everyone's 3DS, getting used to the feel of Earthly technology and learning how to play with each Pokemon's strengths and weaknesses. It was like teaching a child how to play a video game for the first time, but even with his lack of experience compared to the others, he became just as enthralled with it as they were.   
  
    This continued for a few weeks; almost a month. The Avengers would gather in Stark Tower every day, and with nothing better to do than sit around and play Pokemon with each other, that's what they did. With each passing day, they grew more and more passionate and competitive about it.   
  
    The only one who hadn't been consumed by the game was Clint, and quite frankly, he was fed up with being the only one left out. However, he had no intention of letting himself become infected with Pokemon Fever like the others had. No, they were obsessed. They had to be stopped. Clint had to put an end to it, and soon, before everyone but him became overweight couch potatoes.   
  
    "Alright, that's  _it!_ " he shouted, finally having lost his cool as the noise grew to a particularly loud level while the other Avengers seemed to be having a competition of some sort.   
  
    He stood up from the table and walked swiftly over to the couch where the others were. They had all stopped their games so that they could look at him. All of them were shocked about how angry he seemed. He walked passed all of them and snatched their 3DSs from them one at a time, causing each of them to gasp indignantly as their precious handheld gaming systems were torn from their fingers.   
  
    Clint carried all of the 3DSs towards the glass door that led to the large platform on the building's exterior. Quickly, the rest of the Avengers got up from the couch and followed him. He opened the door to the platform and stepped outside, walking very quickly to the edge of it and then turning around to face the other Avengers, who were still coming towards him.  
  
    "Don't take another step!" he shouted at them. All of them stopped in their tracks obediently.   
  
    "Clint... Clint, what are you doing?" Natasha asked calmly, yet seriously. "Put the 3DSs down," she ordered.  
  
    "No!" Clint shouted, holding them close to his chest. "No! No, this has gone too far!"   
  
    "What're you talking about, Barton?" Tony asked. "Give us our games back!"  
  
    "No!" Clint shouted again. "You guys... You're  _obsessed!_  You know, it was okay at first, when it was just Steve and Natasha. It was cute, even. A-and there's nothing wrong with super heroes being able to enjoy themselves! But ever since you guys got these games, that's all you do anymore! Just battle each other and trade your stupid Pokemon and try to beat the game, and frankly, I'm sick of it! You guys are ignoring your training, you're not working, you just sit there on the couch all day like teenagers! We could have a mission any day now and you guys wouldn't even move a muscle! It's time for this to  _end!_ "  
  
    Clint took the first 3DS off of the pile he held in his arms and held it over the edge of the platform. The others' eyes widened and silent gasps escaped their lips. "Clint... Clint, put the 3DS down..." Bruce urged, as calmly as possible.  
  
    "Barton, you're making a big mistake," Tony said.  
  
    "Please, friend, do not do this to us. We can change, I know it. Just do not take those precious games from us," Thor begged.   
  
    "You had your chance..." Clint whispered. "It's too late now..."   
  
    The others screamed in horror as Clint tossed the 3DS over the edge of the platform. One by one, he took the others off the stack and tossed them too. The other Avenger's screams became more and more desperate as each one was tossed over the edge, never to be seen again. It pained Clint to have to see the agony that he had caused his friends. He turned his face away from them, and instead watched the 3DSs as they plummeted towards the Earth beneath them.  
  
    "It's done..." he whispered.   
  
~*~  
  
    Surprisingly, it didn't take very long for the others to get over their Pokemon Fever. Having their game systems tossed over the edge of Stark Tower seemed to wake them up from their daze and make them realize just how annoying and irresponsible they were being. Even so, that didn't stop Steve and Tony from buying new 3DSs after the fact, but they didn't play with the 3DSs nearly as often as they had been the previous week.   
  
    Things went pretty much back to normal after that. The Avengers hung out together, trained together and even got some work done every day now that the distraction of Pokemon was out of the way. One thing was for sure, though. Clint Barton and Nick Fury would never let the others live this down.

**Author's Note:**

> ladies, gentlemen and people of neither title, I present to you the most hilarious thing I have ever written. It is probably simultaneously the stupidest thing I have ever written, but I don't really care |D It's a birthday gift for my best friend and I had a ton of fun with it! Granted, I don't know much about Pokemon so I kind of bullshitted my way through this whole fic, but I think it still turned out pretty well. Hope you guys enjoy it!


End file.
